Seriously. It seems like every restaurant from Pizza Hut to the local trendy bistro has concrete floors, exposed ceilings and 20 televisions going. Some friends took us out last week and I literally could not hear the conversation at my own table.

The belief in restaurant design seems to be that younger folks eat out a lot, and that they want every restaurant to be as loud as a dance club so that they know they're having a good time. This may even be true. This is not restricted to the current generation; the trend appears to have started during my generation and is starting to peak.

The second reason is that hard, smooth surfaces are much easier to clean, and with current trends in mandatory minimum wages, the cost of cleaning keeps going up.

There are quiet restaurants, but often they tend towards the top end of the price spectrum. There's a few lovely exceptions -- Mozzaria in SF, for example, where the servers are deaf -- but mostly I find that if I want to hear clearly for under $30/person, then I'd better sit outside.

Yeah, not a lot of al fresco dining in Michigan. Very few places that aren't planted next to some truly spectacular scenery are willing to pay for an extra dining room that is closed for 3/4 of the year.

I don't dine out much, but I read the reviews in the Philly paper, and the critic always makes note of the noise, giving the decibel level, and it is almost always far above ideal (he gives the ideal level each time, but I don't recall what it is) , and often to the level thal hearing protection is recommended, when working in a workshop, FI. How do people enjoy this, I wonder? But then, many are damaging their hearing with earplugs in all day, turned to maximum volume.

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